Name
Topics and Trends in Environmental Disinfection
Date & Time
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Janette Wider Cliff Yahnke
Description

On any given day, about one in 31 hospital patients has at least one healthcare-associated infection (HAIs). The estimated direct annual cost of treating HAIs in the United States ranges from $28.4 billion to $45 billion, resulting in a heavy burden on the public health system. While there is widespread acceptance that there is both a need for reassessing traditional cleaning protocols and for using secondary disinfection technologies, not all of the technology is created equal or provide the most benefits. Portable ultraviolet (UV) systems have been in use for over 10 years to provide benefits to their users.  At the same time, hospitals have also become aware of their limitations, most notably, the need for people to operate the technology and the requirement that the room be shut down.  For those applications where the risk of infection is established and consequential (e.g. operating rooms), a non-portable, or fixed system may be a better alternative.  For users familiar with portable UV systems, a fixed UV system might be a logical alternative, however, these systems have their own trade-offs that are not inherent in lighting technology that seamlessly integrates 405 nanometer indigo visible light to provide safe disinfection around the clock, even when people are present during a procedure and without taking up additional ceiling space.

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